How Might We Visualize Data in More Effective and Inspiring Ways?

Data dashboards are the prime focus in several areas today, from your Car to your Finance portfolio to your Computer usage.  Most of these use simple line and bar graphs, but GOOD magazine asks is there better, more effective ways to visualize data?

Every form of visualization should tell a story. Unfortunately there is limited attention and time to process all the stories. So the gist of the story, or its immediate impact, should be visible right away. The term I like to use for this principle is “glanceability.” What does a visualization tell us before we take time to analyze it? I invite you to look at the following chart and image for 10 seconds each and compare. What did you see? What did you feel?

via How Might We Visualize Data in More Effective and Inspiring Ways? | GOOD.

This story written by Randall Hand

Randall Hand is a visualization scientist working for a federal research lab, aiding researchers to discover the insights buried within their terabyte datasets generated on some of the most powerful supercomputers in the world. He also runs VizWorld.com .